Happy Birthday, Little One!

It's been nearly nineteen months since I first endured the shock of being pregnant. I was scheduled for testing to see what it would take to get pregnant after I ran the marathon. Imagine my surprise to find out I was already there!! It took an ultrasound to discover I was due on June 7th- my birthday. Near the end of my pregnancy I started having problems. I had three or four doctors appointments each week to monitor my fluid levels. On May 19th, we went to the hospital when the baby's movements changed. After a few hours of monitoring I had the choice of staying or going home. I chose to go home (yes, I'd rather deal with the pain on my own couch till I really can't stand it anymore). I slept all night and we were back at the hospital in the morning when her movements changed again. My doctor was waiting for us- he didn't give me a choice this time. He broke my water around 8AM. Leah Jayne was born at noon. My doctor happens to be in my ward... they had to call him out of Sunday School - he barely made it on time, but was done in time to make it to the end of Priesthood. :) Although Leah was a surprise, she has been nothing but a blessing. She is sweet, and cuddly, and loves to make her sisters laugh. She adores them. Each morning when I get her out of her crib, I thank Heavenly Father for sending such a beautiful little girl to my home. We have been blessed. At just five pounds when we brought her home from the hospital, I was afraid I would break her! We were so lucky she didn't have any problems from being born three weeks early. She is still our tiny girl- weighing in at a whopping 16 and half pounds.
Her sisters still adore her. Alexa is such a good babysitter and Callie... well, Callie tries really hard to take care of her too... in her own way.
Under that hat is piles of dark hair. She had more hair than both my other girls and we thought they had lots! She also had blue eyes, which was a shock for us. I thought for sure those Italian genes of Andrew's would give us all brown-eyed babies. How fun to have a blue-eyed girl too. I still look at her eyes and smile.
She didn't even really fit in this car seat when she was born. I tried not to take her anywhere just because I hated having to try to make her little body fit in the seat!